Real estate is an immensely competitive and complex industry. Many types of intermediaries, such as real estate agents, serve as referral sources. In an attempt to gain a competitive edge in the market, systems and methods have been developed to track visits to real estate property.
For example, U.S. Application Publication No. 2011/0301987 (Weise) attempts to track an actual “drive-by” of a real estate property to provide an indicator of interest by a potential purchaser. As shown in FIG. 1, reproduced from Weise, the system utilizes signals, such as those received from a cell phone 22 or Global Positioning System (GPS) unit of a potential purchaser, to determine the location of that individual, and the frequency, duration and proximity of visits to a location of real estate property for sale. If the cell phone 22 is determined to be within a minimum distance of the real estate property listed for sale, Weise discloses that the information is recorded.
As another example of the prior art, U.S. Pat. No. 8,311,845 (Vengroff) discloses an advertising system based on visits to a physical location. Vengroff teaches a step of confirming that a user visited a business by the exchange of a signal between a mobile device and one or more beacon devices installed on the premises.